All depending on the weather
by WaltzMatildah
Summary: 'She thinks having no blood might feel a little something like having blood that been frozen to stone'. A post season six finale Alex and Meredith friendship fic with Derek, Mark and Izzie on the side. Angst abounds with a little ray of hope at the end.


Author's Note: So. Not gonna lie. This is totally my dream scenario. If this happens on the show I'll die happy no matter what the rest of my life has in store for me. Unfortunately, I know it's not gonna... happen on the show that is...

Oh well. Enjoy!

**All depending on the weather, I'll be back by December...**

by Waltzmatildah

* * *

It's three days before he triggers the vent and another two before he's stable enough for them to remove it.

Altman is still not all that keen on the idea, but the look in his eyes says _do it or I'll do it myself_ and so she does: preceded by warnings about oxygen sats and blood pressure levels and shoving the tube back down his throat if either head south in the minutes, hours, days that follow.

He hasn't seen the scans. They haven't offered to show them to him and, with scribbled notes his only real means of communication until now, he hasn't bothered to ask.

He figures five days of mechanical ventilation is all the answer he needs to questions like "how bad?" and "how long?"

Apparently 'lucky' doesn't even come close. That much they have told him.

Lexie has been conspicuous only by her absence. He tries not to dwell too long on the fact that it seems a ithing/i with him for approximately seven days, give or take, was all that she could manage.

He's bitter and he doesn't even have the energy to care.

It's becoming a well ingrained pattern that he no longer knows how to fight.

No longer knows if he wants to.

* * *

He checks himself out against medical advice exactly six days earlier than the discharge estimate the Seattle Presbyterian cardiothoracic attending had given him as a guide.

Meredith turns up just after lunch, as has been her routine lately, to find his room empty and the bed stripped bare. Monitors removed, the bottom drawer where his wallet and phone had been slightly ajar.

At first she assumes he's been moved to a different room for rehab. or physiotherapy.

She takes that as a good sign because, to be honest, he really didn't look all that great this time yesterday.

She finds a nurse that she vaguely recognises and asks her for directions. But she only shrugs instead, shakes her head knowingly, and shows her where he'd signed on the dotted line just a handful of hours earlier.

* * *

He hails a cab at the hospital exit, his backpack slung over his left shoulder and his arm wrapped protectively around his ribs.

When the disinterested driver asks him _'where to?'_ he thinks _home _but he's not entirely sure where home is anymore because it hasn't been a faded white single story in Iowa for more years than he can count, and it's not the rented room he shared with Lexie and it's no longer the hospital, his saving grace, because he almost died there and the thought of walking through those doors again sends him reeling.

He rattles off vague directions to Derek's trailer and settles gingerly into the backseat, hopes to God that the spare key is still hidden under the rusty barbecue leg.

* * *

Meredith knows he's not at the house because she's just come from there. And she doubts he's gone to Seattle Grace because he changes the subject whenever it's raised in conversation and he might have gone to Joe's but she doubts it.

The parallels would be too blinding, especially for him.

And so a process of elimination has her head in the only direction left to choose.

She picks her way across the damp grass, the spongy undergrowth squelching slightly with each step. She can hear birds, wind, tree branches bracing against one another. The sounds of the city; muted and far away. She refuses to look at the view. The view is her future, maybe. And every time she finds herself risking a glance in the direction she has always feared, the whole lot tends to come crashing down around her ankles.

So she picks her way across the damp grass and refuses to look at the view.

The metal door shakes open an inch and with a resounding clatter that she can't quite conceal. She rests her forehead against it, finds a strange mix; relief in the fact that it's unlocked and disappointment in the fact that this is where he's come to lick his wounds.

A giant _fuck you all_ to the world.

To her.

She pulls the door open enough that she can squeeze through the gap and step inside. Takes a deep breath to ready herself for the inevitable brick wall she's about to bounce her head against.

But he's asleep. Curled into himself on the left hand side of the mattress. And she of all people knows what the need to leave half the bed free feels like.

She relaxes instantly. Allows some of the fight to drain from her blood at the sight of him, relatively unscathed.

Breathing.

She still remembers a time when his breathing was no longer a matter of course.

She'd thank God for small mercies if she believed in him.

Or her.

Maybe.

* * *

The air is cool, uncomfortably so. It's been a while since anyone visited. Aired the place out. The only two people who seem to tolerate it here ended up with bullets in their chests.

It's been a while.

She drags an old fleece out from where she remembers it being stashed, it's musty and probably not as clean as it could be but, in the absence of an alternative, she tosses it gently over the sleeping form of her belligerent housemate.

He doesn't so much as stir.

She pulls a collapsible chair from its storage spot against the rear wall and folds herself into it gingerly. Rests her chin on her knees and settles in for the wait.

* * *

The shadows are starting to lengthen across the cramped confines of the trailer when she first notices movement. She supposes that she's dozed off at some stage because she seems to have lost a good portion of the afternoon.

And her right leg is completely numb.

From her butt cheek all the way to her toes. She gives them a cursory wiggle and winces at the flair of sensation that sends her stomach roiling.

The fleeting nausea is eerily familiar.

She shifts then, unable to avoid movement, disturbance, for any longer. He jolts awake, launches to upright in such a clumsy lurching manner that she swears she hears stitches pop.

They don't.

"Hey, you okay?" she offers, genuine but cautious. Worried about what the answer is likely to be.

"'m fine," he gruffs back, clearly not; his head tilted at an angle against the headboard, eyes mostly closed, breath coming in ragged gasps.

She wants to ask where his pain meds are but she already knows the answer to that question and it's the start of a discussion she really doesn't have the energy for just yet.

It'll have to wait.

* * *

He gives himself a couple of seconds to gather up the few remaining shards of composure he's managed to hold onto, risks a furtive glance at her and relaxes an inch when he finds she's studying her thumbnail. It's quite obviously a deliberate distraction but he'll take it nonetheless because… _jesus_.

He doesn't remember falling asleep. Doesn't even really remember the cab ride to the trailer. The disorientation is equilibrium shifting.

He opens his eyes again and the trailer does a slow spin as his fingers grip at a blanket he doesn't remember retrieving. Waiting for the world to right itself again he begins to wonder if it ever will.

If it ever was in the first place.

"Whadda you doin' here?" His words slur slightly, stick to his tongue, coat the roof of his mouth, still more asleep than awake. He hates how weak he sounds. How sick and scared and unsure.

He's spent his whole damn life fighting off that inevitability.

She gives him a look. It could mean ten things, it could mean a thousand.

In reality it means only one but he can't bring himself to believe it just yet.

Maybe not ever. Not anymore.

"Alex."

She says his name like it's a sigh, breathes it out with no real volume. He lets his eyes slide closed again, rolls his head back until it's once more tilted against the headboard.

He's just slept for hours but he's never felt more exhausted.

"Mere, please don't…"

But he can't even fathom what it is he doesn't want her to do, not really anyway, and he can almost see the instant she switches to attack.

"Don't what, Alex? Don't care? Don't talk to you? Don't look after you? Don't look at you? What? Because I'm kinda at a loss here… you've gotta give me a little more to work with than just _please don't_."

He keeps his eyes closed. Finds the thought of having to look at her too overwhelming. At least for now.

"I'm sorry?"

He offers an apology. For running. For messing up her day. For getting shot in the first place. For being so pathetic that she's the only one left who'll come looking for him.

For everything.

He offers her an apology because it's the only thing he has left to give.

* * *

She's really trying not to cry. And she hates that he's reduced her to this, because they're the same, so much of them is exactly the same and the only reason she's so close to tears is because she _understands_.

Understands so explicitly that it hurts to even breathe.

"Don't... you don't..." and now she's stuck on the damn word and it's probably fitting because yeah, it always has been their default.

"There's nothing you need to be sorry for..." He huffs and rolls his eyes. More learned defense mechanism than true exasperation. She knows she'll never convince him it's the truth. "But you can't stay here, you know that right?"

He looks stricken, puzzled. Scared. And it's not what she means. Not at all. But he's jumped straight to thinking she's kicking him out because i'don't'/i is not his only default. She moves to standing, reaches across and pulls at the blanket that he's clutching like it's the only thing holding him together.

Tugs until he's looking at her. Eye to eye.

"I've come to get you. To take you back to the house. I've been sitting here going numb from the waist down waiting for you to wake up so that I can do exactly that-" He moves to open his mouth. To protest or to apologise or to ask her why, she doesn't know. She raises a hand swiftly to silence him. "Because it wasn't just you, Alex. It wasn't just you and I have a post it husband to look after and I can't be a good wife to him when all I can think about is you laying dead on the floor of this damn trailer."

"But that's not what I... I don't want you to have to look after me."

"Well, who else is going to because you seem so determined not to do it for yourself."

He deflates then. Visibly. Presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, and she's knows it's a low blow, perhaps as low as she's ever been with him, but this time two weeks ago she was going to be a mother and there was a life growing inside her and she wasn't terrified, not completely, not like she thought she would be, and it's gone now and it didn't just happen to him.

And two weeks ago, there were only two people in her whole world ahead of him on her list of people to tell and now she doesn't know how she'll ever be able to.

* * *

They leave. He crumbles with a completeness that she wasn't expecting.

He pauses at the top of the steps, seems to weigh up the distance between where he is and the bottom of the stairs as well as the expanse of dewy grass between the trailer and the car.

She wants to tell him that he managed the distance just fine a few hours ago and he's had a nap since then so, get on with it. But she guesses that's not really in keeping with the supportive and caring vibe she's supposedly channelling.

Instead she pretends to fumble with the lock mechanism to give him a few extra seconds to catch his breath and steel his resolve. When she turns to follow him, he's half way down, hunched into himself slightly against the early evening air. She knows any pain meds they topped him off with at Seattle Pres. before they let him leave will be well and truly out of his system by now and he's making a muted grunt with every step, so quiet and unfamiliar that she's not entirely convinced he's even aware of it.

She falls into step easily beside him, rummages her in pocket for car keys she suddenly remembers are actually still hanging in the ignition. Security isn't really a problem out here and the car is right where she left it.

Keys sorted, she realises that he's slowed his pace. Is barely moving at all. She risks a sideways glance at him, almost afraid of what she'll find.

And she's right to be worried.

He's grey. Dead body grey. Eyes closed and one arm extended, hand palm out.

"Alex?" She wheels in front of him, grabs his flailing wrist and clamps it tight on her shoulder. Tries not to flinch at the intensity of the grip he maintains. "Alex, I swear to God, if you pass out on me I'll kick your ass, literally kick it."

She's panicking slightly, manic gaze flicking from car to trailer to ground and back again, weighing up the best options. For passing out, right now, there are no best options.

That is her only conclusion. Threats it is then. Empty as they may be.

"I'll kick your ass and then I'll call an ambulance. I promise you Alex, unconsciousness, no matter how fleeting, is a one way ticket back to the hospital."

She's managed to pull at his other wrist, to extricate it from the vice like hold he's had on his ribs from the moment he woke. She's the only thing keeping him upright. "Just breathe okay? As slow and deep as you can. I know it hurts-" He grunts at her understatement. She takes it as a good sign. "Okay, fine, I don't know what it's like at all. Just... as slow and deep as you can, okay?"

They remain like that for a few seconds. Or maybe it's minutes. Time seems to slow down and speed up at random intervals these days so it's becoming more and more difficult to tell.

But he keeps it together long enough to make it to the car and that's all that matters for now.

* * *

On the slow but steady drive back in to the city she asks if he's okay now. He's sitting ramrod straight in his seat, staring stoically out the misted windscreen. He's cold, shivering, trying to pretend that he's fine.

Trying and failing.

She cranks the heat to full without bothering to ask. She knows what it's like to be cold to your bones. So cold you can't ever imagine being warm again.

She imagines having no blood might feel a little something like having blood that's been frozen to stone.

He dozes as she drives. She knows because he visibly relaxes. Slumps a little in his seat, loosens his grip on the belt across his chest. Loosens but doesn't let go.

Not completely.

She guesses it'll be a while before he manages that.

* * *

Flipping her phone open in her lap, she makes the most of her momentary reprieve and calls Cristina. Gives her the short version of events, clipped and tight, and rattles off the list of meds she's going to need to get them through the next few days. The next few weeks.

The meds he didn't bother to collect when he discharged himself that morning.

He startles awake when she cuts the ignition. Panics when he sees where they are. Not that he'll ever admit to either of those things.

"What're we doin' here?" There's a desperate nonchalance in his voice. A forced kind of calm that is paper thin and fraying. He wraps a hand around her elbow. It's not tight, not even close, but it's insistent and it's physical contact, physical contact that's he's initiated himself.

The shock of it freezes her bones.

* * *

"You're not going in there are you?" The words are out before he can censor his thoughts. Before he can reign in a grip on the increasingly familiar panic that builds, acrid thick in the back of his throat.

His hand is on her arm. He can't recall how it got there or what purpose it's meant to serve. Just knows that he can't let go. Not yet.

"What? No. Cristina's bringing something out."

His insides start to settle back into place. Sinking and sliding into something that feels a little more like normal. He drops his hand back into his lap, studies his curled fingers and nods his head slowly, forward back, forward back.

"Okay. Is she coming with us? After that?"

"No, I doubt it. Why? What's going on?"

"Nothing." He's backpedalling. Caught out.

"What if I did have to go in there?"

He shrugs. Slides his shoulders towards his ears in an approximation of something that he hopes and prays looks a little like a disinterested i'so what'/i.

But she's always seen straight through him in the past and his defenses have been worn down and dissolved.

And this time is no different.

"We work in there, Alex. We're all going to have to go back in there. Eventually." She's twisted in her seat, turned so she's facing him. He refuses to meet her half way. Remains rigid in his seat, eyes front and centre.

"You know that he's dead, right? Mr. Clark? The shooter? He's not coming back, Alex."

He swallows. Feels the truth roll across the back of his neck, settle somewhere deep between his shoulder blades.

* * *

She sees Cristina approaching, still some distance away but gaining ground fast. She moves to push open her door, already has an inkling of an idea what Cristina thinks about his early discharge and it's one more confrontation she can do without.

At least for now.

She turns to look at him as she's climbing out of the car. The messages hidden in the set of his shoulders, in the tight, white skin of his knuckles, in the steady glare of his eyes, are a confusing mix of _'Don't tell Cristina that I'm fucked up…'_ and _'Don't go in there…'_ and _'Don't let her go in there…'_ and a whole host of other _don't's_ that she can't even begin to decipher.

Cristina matches her last few steps with a steady raising of her eyebrows. Questions and criticisms and recriminations all rolled into one facial expression.

She rolls her own eyes back in a silent response that is immediately understood.

After all, it's been years since they needed words to communicate.

Meds retrieved, she adds them to the debris already cluttering the rear seat and slides back in behind the wheel. He's drumming his fingers against his thigh, positively thrumming with a nervous energy as he follows Cristina's retreating back.

She sighs, doesn't bother to speak, to ask him if he's okay.

The lie that he is will have been practiced and rehearsed in her absence.

He may even have begun to believe it himself.

* * *

They arrive at the house just as Mark is leaving.

She's grateful that he's been there, that Derek hasn't been alone this whole time. He's her husband's best friend and she can't begrudge him that. She _can _be a little pissed off about the timing.

She offers him a tight smile as she shifts half a step closer to Alex, her instinct to protect in permanent overdrive these days.

"So, turns out you didn't even have to kill me to get what you wanted…"

"Alex-" She moves to wrap her hand around his bicep. She's seen him in this mood before and he's never been one to shy away from a fight. But he's kept moving, and her fingers clench around thin air and it's over before it really had a chance to begin.

She figures he thinks he got the last word.

"They discharged him? Really?" Mark is still standing off to the side of the path and his words are almost whisper quiet as his curious gaze follows Alex's slow progress up the front steps.

She shifts the backpack that's slung over her shoulder and slides her eyes skyward.

"Don't even get me started..." And the exasperation laced there is more than enough to make her point resoundingly clear.

"Hey, Meredith?"

His voice stops her as she's reaching for the front door handle. She pauses for a beat before turning back to him, feels exhaustion and despair burn behind her lids.

"I know it sucks for him right now. I get that, I do. But Lexie and I? We have our reasons. Good reasons. Lots happened that day, more than just gunshots and blood loss, and he may not remember but they're still reasons..."

She doesn't know what he's talking about, what the reasons are, and something that shifts in her chest tells her she probably doesn't want to know either. She nods instead, short and sharp, and turns back to the house.

* * *

Getting himself up the front steps is an exercise in restraint. Not to scream or pass out or punch Mark Sloan in the face.

He's furious and he doesn't even really know why. It's irrational and it's consuming but it's also blissfully distracting so he latches his teeth into it and drags it around with him like a perpetual shadow.

He's managed to settle himself with some degree of comfort on the couch. The television is on and he thumbs at the buttons repeatedly, changing channels before he's even had time to focus on the images. Loses himself in the white noise that exists between this one and the next.

And the next and the next.

He senses more than sees her sink to seated beside him. And he only protests for a heartbeat as she slides the remote from his fingers and replaces it with a palm full of colourful capsules. She places a bottle of water on the coffee table in front of him, to be honest he's not entirely sure he'll be able to reach it but asking her to pass it to him seems like such a monumental effort and he's empty.

He has nothing left to give.

The look in her eyes is clear despite the fact that she doesn't actually speak. '_Take them or else_'. He'd smirk at her grim determination, gruff back a '_yes, Mom_' or maybe even fumble through a half hearted salute... if he wasn't so completely and utterly shattered.

He rolls the meds around in the palm of his hand, can hear the muted clunks as the gel capsules move against each other. She stands suddenly, the angle of the cushion altering slightly. She leans across him and hooks her finger around the neck of the water bottle, slings it into his lap pointedly.

It's then that he knows he won't argue.

She disappears and it takes ten minutes before the nausea isn't something he can continue to ignore. The combination of narcotic pain killers and a lack of food.

He takes several deep breaths. But he's a doctor. He knows.

And the reality is inevitable.

At the bottom of the stairs the challenge seems insurmountable.

At the top he's disorientated, exhausted, _this close_ to giving up altogether.

To falling asleep on the landing and never waking up.

* * *

She makes her way up the stairs. One hand on the rail as it slides, smooth and sure under her palm. Her mother's house. The one constant in her wild ride of a life.

She pushes their bedroom door open slowly but with no hint of hesitation and she takes a moment to relish in the fact that she's not tentative around him. Doesn't feel like she needs to creep around on her tip toes or speak in whispers or only look at him when he's not looking at her.

_Her husband._ The word rolls around in her head, sinks down into her chest, fills voids she long swore would remain steadfastly barren.

She's not sure when it happened. The change. All she knows is she's so completely glad that it did. Because this? The post it and the house on the hill and the possibility of babies, split ends and all, finally feels like exactly where she needs to be.

She presses the door closed behind her and leans back against it, offers a wide smile as he shifts to face her, mostly recovered now.

"Hey, you..." he murmurs, voice low and husky with sleep.

She melts.

She doesn't even care.

"Hey yourself."

She crosses the room, reaches the foot of the bed and climbs on.

"So... crisis averted?"

She's crawled, all fours, along the length of his body until their noses are almost touching.

"Shhhhh..." she breathes, silencing his questions with a finger held softly against his lips and a kiss that shatters her resolve.

In the aftermath they sit, side by side, shoulders pressed together.

"Is it safe to ask yet?" She sighs, deep, complete. He reaches for her hand, twirls his thumb around the base of hers.

She thanks him for understanding.

For understanding the ragtag family she pulled together in the absence of anything else real. For any of them. She thanks him for understanding that she's trying to be a good post it wife, and a good friend and a good surgeon and she doesn't really have a template for any of the above so she's kinda flying blind.

Most of the time.

"He has no one, Derek. Literally no one. And whether it's actually true or not, I really think he believes that."

* * *

She's half hoping that he's fallen asleep on the couch, that she can cover him up and cross off day one. Chalk it up as a vague success because hey, she's managed to keep him alive and mostly functioning on her own for the majority of it. But she's distracted by a beam of pale yellow light illuminating a bar of colour across the hallway carpet ahead of her and she knows instantly that she's spoken too soon.

Because the bathroom light wasn't on forty minutes ago and process of elimination means there's only one possible occupant. She hears retching, low and harsh, and ragged breath; coughing. A frustrated, barely audible moan, a heady combination of pain and exhaustion that ices her veins.

She pauses with her palm pressed flush to the cool wood. Unsure whether to enter but completely sure he won't want her there. She grits her teeth and gives the door a push anyhow.

He's on his knees, trembling. Fine shivers that grow in intensity as the second hand ticks the passing minutes off. One by one.

The back of his t-shirt is drenched in sweat despite the shivering. Or maybe because of it. At least partly. And between the retching he props his elbow on the bowl, uses the flat of his hand to keep his head up. His eyes are closed and she's not entirely sure he knows she's beside him until she runs the tap to his left.

Nudging his shoulder with the glass of water she's just filled, she settles her weight on the floor behind him, offering just enough physical contact to be grounding but not enough to push him away. He raises his head enough to free his hand, allows her to press the cool glass into his fingers, closes her own around his for a moment. Solidarity in numbers and all that.

She thinks he gets it.

Maybe.

He drinks shakily. Uses the liquid to rinse the foul taste from his mouth and spits it back into the bowl. There hadn't been much to bring up, a handful of pills and the water it took to get them down in the first place. She should have fed him first, but she should have done a lot of things differently over these last few weeks and she refuses to start feeling guilty now.

Knows that if she does, she'll drown in it. Over and over and over until the sound of her own voice in her head is an unfamiliar echo that she can't quite bring herself to decipher.

She's been there before.

He reaches up unsteadily with one arm, attempts to connect his fingers with the button to flush the toilet. She places her hand on his and it's all the weight that's required to have him slumping forward again as she closes the lid and completes the flush for him.

He sets the glass by his knee, slumped now to the side a little more, his head back on his hand, as though he no longer has the energy required to remain mostly upright. And, to be honest, she's surprised he's even made it this far.

The way she's sitting means her shin bone is pressed to his thigh. It's the only contact he's allowed her to maintain and she's not going to push her luck by initiating any more. Offers only words instead.

They're all she has left.

"She's been calling, you know." She doesn't bother to expand upon the 'she', he knows who she means. He stiffens beside her. Remains slumped but develops a rigidity that had previously been lacking.

She presses on regardless.

"She calls me at least once every day. Every day since..." she trails off because they still don't speak about what happened. He has unspoken rules about it and she's so far out of her depth when it comes to things like that that she's happy to oblige. For the most part. "Sometimes she calls four or five times. I've told her not to call you, not to come, not yet anyway…I didn't know... I hope you don't mind..."

The trembling is back, the rigidity stripped away. Exhaustion and sickness and something that might be a little too much like hope combining to tear down his defenses.

"So, I told her not to come but, you know what she's like…"

"Yeah, you know what she's like, she never does do as she's told."

And it turns out that the beam of light across the worn carpet hadn't been the only unexpected sight to greet her on the stairs.

* * *

Meredith is still speaking to him, mumbles out something hot and soft against his ear that might be "I'm gonna go now" and it might be "okay?" but it might also be about the price of tea in China because the only sure things he knows right now are that his chest is absolutely and completely on fire and that he can't fucking _breathe _and if he stops thinking about either of those two things then he'll have to think about the voice he just heard.

And he doesn't know yet if he's ready for that.

If he'll ever be ready for that.

Shifting to stand, to move aside, he tightens, concrete solid beneath the white hot touch of her fingertips. She squeezes once, for reassurance, for comfort, for some kind of indication that everything is going to be okay.

And maybe, just a little bit, for herself.

A physical changing of the guard.

She passes Izzie as she moves out of the room. Offers her friend a tight smile that she knows could be read in a million different ways.

_"It's about time..."_

_"I don't know what to do..."_

_"I've missed you..."_

_"He's missed you..."_

_"Thank you..."_

They're each a little piece of the truth.

* * *

She slides to the floor. Takes up the place that Meredith had been occupying. It's an unfamiliar shape that she needs to fill and she's terrified suddenly that what she has to offer won't be enough.

That it was never enough.

He's tentative at first. Positively humming with a silent sort of tension that trips her heartbeat and curls her toes. And she has so many questions, so many iwords/i in her head, that she can't quite bring herself to open her mouth lest she get them no where near right.

It wouldn't be the first time.

And history has a sad habit of repeating when it comes to things like that.

She forces contact instead, runs her hands over his back, through his hair, slightly longer than she remembers it, down his arms. He relents eventually, shockingly. Melts into her chest with a completeness that is almost overwhelming. Almost has them both slumping to the floor as she struggles to realign her body to support his weight.

And she thinks it would be all kinds of ironic if that's where they ended up. She has vivid memories of him figuratively picking her up off this very spot not all that long ago.

Not in the scheme of hours and weeks and years that have made up how they got to here.

It's probably about time she returned the favour.

If he'll let her.

And maybe, even, if he won't.


End file.
